When I was a shaver, I believed there was a creature called Bigfoot, and I could support this belief with evidence. Many cultures have stories of a shaggy-haired man-like reclusive creature. Many reputable people say they think they have seen or heard such a creature. There are blurry photos and videos that show what looks like Bigfoot. Scientists have found footprints in the snow that are too large to be made by any known animal. And so on.

When sceptics argued my evidence might have another causes, for example pointing out that the freezing and thawing of ice can make the footprint of a bear or wolf much larger over time, I was unmoved, because my theory explained all the evidence I could see.

But then someone smart asked me a question: “Where is Bigfoot’s poop?”. I saw the logic immediately. Given that Bigfoot is large and uses lots of energy roaming widely in the forests, he needs a lot of calories to keep going. That means he must eat a lot. And as he is a humanoid, he presumably excretes the remains of his meals. He himself may be reclusive, but his poop wouldn’t be. So why don’t we find his spoor as we do that of every other creature? Does he carry it with him in an American Tourister bag or something? This point shattered my faith in Bigfoot.

Psychologist Daniel Kahneman’s marvelous book Thinking Fast and Slow well describes the basic cognitive limitations that made me (and many other people) believe in Bigfoot. The first is the tendency to see common themes where they aren’t any, which made Bigfoot seem to me the logical, essential thread connecting all my disparate “evidence”. The other is that the human mind focuses on what is in front of it while being poor at accounting for what is not present, like Bigfoot’s poop.

Whoever asked me the poop question (I wish I could remember so that I could thank him or her) didn’t try to dispute the evidence which I thought supported my theory. Rather, they took my theory as correct and then pointed out that what followed logically from it was not in evidence. Some people cannot be argued out of strange theories for emotional reasons, but those who can are more likely to be susceptible to this style of counter-argument than they are a direct attack on their observed evidence.

17 Responses to “Where is Bigfoot’s Poop?”

The so-called absence of poop has never been an issue to me. First, I think of it like I do when people talk about bones. How many times have you seen bones in the forest and just assumed you knew what they came from or didn’t care enough to look closely? I don’t know of any projects that go into the wild and bag every sample of scat they find. Secondly, some animals cover their poop as a defense mechanism, like cats. They want to cover their scent so they cover their poop. I think the “where is the poop” argument is what PhotoExpert refers to as “militant skepticism” more than it is a sincere question/concern.

This article is something of a non-starter. First, I have read in the past of people coming upon what they thought was Bigfoot stool and commenting on what was in it. As far as I know no conclusive DNA testing has been achieved using purported Bigfoot “poop”. As anyone who has spent time in the forest will tell you, animal poop is not difficult to come across but usually doesn’t last very long anyway. I think if we look to higher primate behavior regarding feces you should know that both gorillas and chimpanzees actually will eat their feces and the feces of other members in the group. There are multi-facetted reasons for doing this activity involving nutrient ingestion, bonding, dominance and other social behaviors. If we assume (big assumption here) that the Bigfoot is some sort of higher primate then coprophagia is a possibility for the also assumed lack of Bigfoot droppings queried by the above article. Also remember that once deposited, feces are immediately contaminated by whatever it touches and whatever touches it making any real DNA testing problematical to say the least. This behavior might also be what puts the “Skunk” in Skunk ape…just thought I’d be the first to say that…

Uh, if anyone pays attention, there are plenty of reports of unknown “poop” being found in the woods that does not belong to other known animals.

There is the account of Bigfoot squatting and poopling next to a rabbit in the woods…Bigfoot asked the bunny if it had a problem with crap sticking to its fur, to which the bunny said, “No, it comes right off my fur,” …which is why bunnies don’t squat next to Bigfoots anymore.

I have read many accounts of find of alleged Bigfoot feces. I have also even read one account where a person observed one defecating in a stream. So in fact, maybe that is a practice of them. I would seem to take care of the “wiping” issue we humans have. At any rate, if they are so smart and sophisticated as recently speculated to use skunk scent to mask to cover their natural smell, it would seem to reason they may take measures to cover up or conceal their manure.

Phrases such as ‘is large and uses lots of energy’, ‘needs a lot of calories to keep going’ or ‘means he must eat a lot’ do not have a precise meaning.

We could look at other animals of similar body masses reported for Sasquatch for a comparison. Moose and grizzly bears fall within the body mass ranges.

The base caloric requirement for mammals is fairly scalable by body mass, meaning mammals of the same mass have approximately the same daily caloric requirements. If Sasquatch exist, their daily caloric requirements would be approximately the same as a moose or grizzly bear. Some sources say the average adult moose needs to consume 9,770 calories a day to maintain it body weight and that a typical moose of 790 lb will eat 71 lb of food each day.

If Sasquatch exists, they likely eat much of the same foodstuffs that moose and grizzlys do, and probably would have to move around just as much and consume about the same amount of food.

I guess a question to ask is how often are moose or grizzly bears scat found in the wilderness?

As for moose and griz scat, they are generally going to be pretty distinctive. Moose aren’t omnivores (making pellets much larger than a deer’s), and bear scat tends to run to a type, with variants depending on specific things eaten. I once found, on a remote ridgeline in VA, what looked like a cow pie. I wouldn’t bet a nickel that a cow left it. But bears do eat grass, as dogs are known to do; and a berry scat is the same shape, just berries instead of grass.

The general sasquatch shape – speculation, of course, from what appear to be compelling finds – wouldn’t have anyone thinking either bear or large ungulate.

Now. How often, in relative terms, are they found? Your guess is as good as mine.

I wasn’t asking as to suggest moose or bear scat would be confused with each other or Sasquatch, just that before questioning why we may not find Sasquatch scat, ask how often to we find the scat of other species of similar size.

As someone above mentioned, if cats cover their scat, it’s not unreasonable for a more intelligent life form to do the same.

The better question is where are all of their footprints in the snow? Doing a basic guestimate involving Loren Coleman’s figure of 2,000 sasquatch in North America, figure that 1,500 of them must live in portion of the country where there is significant snow on the ground for at least 60 days per year, there should be at least half a billion sasquatch prints in the snow every winter. Why aren’t we seeing reports of them? Yes, they are subject to change or dissipation by climatic conditions and no, there aren’t as many people out hiking the remote parks in the winter time. But there are millions of hunters crawling around in the woods during the November – January hunting seasons when there is some snow on the ground in many places (i.e. places where sasquatch food sources should plentiful and attracting sasquatches) and we aren’t hearing these hunters report seeing bigfoot tracks. This, to me, is the biggest argument against the existence of sasquatch, more so even than a lack of a body. It should be entirely possible to track a sasquatch back to its lair in the winter when most of its footprints, rather than just a few of them, will be visible. But that hasn’t happened, has it? Why?

I wrote a lengthy e-mail to Jeff Meldrum, giving more detailed figures in my calculations and asked him for an explanation, if he has one, for the lack of bigfoot tracks in the snow (I didn’t come across as a wise-*ss crackpot – I told him I had purchased his book and considered it to be the best on the subject, which I truly believe). He never responded. Now granted he’s a busy man who undoubtedly receives a high enough volume of e-mail than he can’t respond to it all, but I thought my inquiry was a very valid one, posed by someone who is genuinely interested in the topic, not just a juvenile attention-seeker. Maybe he didn’t have a good answer and did not want to admit it.

Insanity, I cannot comment about bear scat, but having lived in Alaska for a few years as a kid back in the mid-late 1970s, I can assure you first hand that there is a LOT of moose scat out in the woods. Moose leave droppings, probably hundreds per animal per day, that are roughly oval in shape, slightly fatter in proportion than a jelly bean and surprisingly small for the size of the animal – maybe 3/4″ – 1 1/4″ long (do a search on eBay for “moose nugget” and you’ll see a whole bunch of auctions for lacquered moose scat people are using to make jewelry – seriously, no joking). When we went hiking in the woods of Alaska within a 200 mile radius of Anchorage, we’d very frequently (i.e. almost every time) see “moose nuggets.” We even had it a few times in our back yard and we lived in a very suburban Anchorage neighborhood.

OK, I can’t edit my first post in this thread, but I eventually spotted the thread on Sasquatch prints in the snow from the second week of June 2013 and posted a response there this afternoon. I’ve been gone from the site for weeks and did not realize that my inquiry had generated enough attention to warrant its own thread.

What I’ve been alluding to, but really haven’t explained in detail, is to me this question is a statistical one.

The reason for asking how often is moose or grizzly scat is found is that the frequency in which the scat of a species in a given area is found is directly proportional to the population of that species in that area.

NMRG, you say that almost every time you went hiking in Alaska you saw moose scat. Alaska’s estimated moose population as of 2011 was 200,000. Using the population figure of 2,000 Sasquatches in North America, then i.e. perhaps a few hundred in Alaska? I.e. if the Sasquatch population in Alaska is 300, than the frequency that Sasquatch scat would be found would be 0.15% (~1:670) that of moose, or almost every 670th time you went out hiking, you’d find Sasquatch scat.